Cutting in the Edges
by brightblue
Summary: Tony and Ziva do some painting. Drabble-ish. Fluff-ish. Tiva.


**This started as a quick drabble, Tony and Ziva and painting because I'd just spent far too much time at Home Depot. But then it became something a little more. Still, not much here in the way of plot, just Tiva sweetness, basically. Ignore painting inaccuracies because I've taken a few liberties there and also feel free to look up these very real paint colors because that was fun. Enjoy! (Oh, and obviously I don't own them. Because, honestly.)**

* * *

"All right! Here we go! Fresh paint, hot off the paint-shaker thing!"

Ziva paused, caulk gun in hand, and turned to the door. Tony picked his way across the canvas-covered floor, stepping over idle brushes and trays, to plunk two gallons down in front of her. Without waiting for a response, he snapped one can open with a screwdriver from his back pocket.

"'Ello, Aloe!" He exclaimed in a terrible Cockney accent as he revealed the gentle green color Ziva had selected for their bedroom. Ziva sighed. Though whether at his antics or the hue, Tony couldn't be sure.

"I like it!" Tony declared, shooting Ziva a sideways look. "Please say you like it. I don't want to have to sweet talk Rhonda in the paint department into another return."

Pursing her lips, Ziva glanced between the paint and the walls. She tapped her foot then crossed her arms, eyes flicking back and forth with sharp concentration. Tony felt the stress of home ownership, a very large and present knot on his back left shoulder, grow tighter in her long silence.

"I think it will do."

"Thank god," Tony breathed. He gave their room the once over. They'd spent the last few days prepping the upstairs bedrooms to paint as Ziva anguished over the subtle differences between Refresh and Waterfall for their own space. Their kitchen and living room now boasted colors like Jonquil and Evening Shadow and for as tedious as painting all those walls had been, the paint selection process had been, in retrospect, relatively smooth.

"It is our bedroom. I want it to be perfect," Ziva mumbled, turning away from him to finish caulking around the window that looked out into their hopefully-someday landscaped yard.

Tony softened as he appraised the room, searching for any imperfection they'd failed to fix with their putty and sandpaper. They'd done a thorough job that much was true. His eyes went back to Ziva as she dabbed again at the seam between the windowsill and wall, surely caulk overkill. A tiny bit of her tongue was wedged into the corner of her mouth, which was not only a sign of her intense concentration but her annoyance. He felt guilty for not being endlessly supportive of her color indecision but a man could only handle so many trips to Home Depot in a day.

Apologies written on his face, he sneaked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her body into his. She squirmed a bit, as if she was going to pull away, but her hands resting firmly on his forearms told a different story.

"I really wanted to go for the obvious comeback there," he said as he nuzzled into her neck. "But I'll refrain and just remind you that whatever makes you happy—

"I know," she grinned, for he had been reminding her of this through all of the many decisions that had to be made when they'd bought their house. Not that he didn't express his style and preference, it was just that he didn't like any light fixture or tile choice as much as he loved the serene look on her face when she found her favorite. "Thank you." She turned her head for a kiss. He happily obliged.

"Are we ready to paint?" Tony checked in one last time as he pulled back, rubbing his nose against hers before he did. She scrunched up her face at him.

"Yes." Her nod was decisive. She moved from his embrace, standing with her hands placed on her hips. "I am ready."

"Then here we go!" He did a ceremonial drum on his thighs before bending down to stir the paint in the bucket and pour some out into two small pails. He handed one to Ziva along with an angled brush. "Milady."

Chuckling, Ziva just rolled her eyes at him and headed to the far corner of the room to begin cutting into the primed wall from the closet doors. "Are you sure we do not want to tape off the trim?"

Tony scoffed. "Tape is for amateurs. Do you not recall that I was part of one of the most in-demand painting crews back in Peoria?"

"No," Ziva shook her head, grinning, "I seem to have forgotten since the last time you told this story. Yesterday."

"Yes," Tony continued, ignoring her. "We were the Rookie Blues. It was our softball team name _and_ the name of our off-duty painting crew. We made quite a bit of cash. Helped to pay off my student loans!"

"I am just saying, we had to do quite a bit of touch up in the kitchen because _someone_ got a little overzealous around the baseboards." Ziva kept her gaze trained on her work as Tony made a face at her.

"Wasn't me. It was definitely Gibbs," Tony decided, starting to paint around a window frame with quick, precise strokes.

"What did I do, DiNozzo?"

And because he was even more perceptive than Beetlejuice, Gibbs appeared at the first mention of his name. Ziva laughed.

"Err, nothing, boss," Tony hastened to correct, shooting his partner in crime a look. She didn't sell him out, but did give their mentor a quick kiss on the cheek as a welcome. "Here to help again?"

"I figure if I don't, I won't see you back at work for the next month." Gibbs went for the open can of paint. He plopped down the supplies he'd brought with him. He insisted upon carting them back and forth with him each time he'd come to help out with the painting, which was pretty much every day for the last week. His plastic bucket wore paint spatters from at least a decade's worth of painting, an array of manly neutral colors, and contained equally as tried and true supplies. When Tony offered the former Marine a new paint pail with an ergonomic handle and brush-holding magnet, he'd received only a sneer in reply as Gibbs pulled out an extra-large mason jar for his paint as well as a single brush he seemed to use to paint everything.

"Thank you, Gibbs," Ziva smiled, retreating back to her corner. "That is probably true."

Tony frowned, a fairly reflexive action whenever Ziva showed preference for Gibbs over him. It was a petty response, he knew; he had nothing but appreciation for their relationship. But still. He liked being Ziva's favorite. Sensing this, Ziva's expression flickered into something decidedly sultrier as she caught his eye. He waggled his eyebrows in appreciation, taking in her look not for the first time that day. The fact that her painting uniform consisted of old running shorts that had clearly shrunk down a bit in the dryer and a threadbare t-shirt of his that she knotted up in the back definitely interested him. Whenever she rose up on her tiptoes to reach just a bit higher, he was treated to a sliver of tanned midriff. She'd piled her hair in a messy bun on the top of her head but since she was still growing it back out again, wisps and curls escaped even when she tried to tame them back with a bandana. She was pretty much a domestic goddess centerfold. He was a lucky man.

"DiNozzo, the paint is drying," Gibbs scolded when Tony's ogling had gone on too long.

Winking at Ziva, who he was pretty sure had started with the top of the closet door just to tease him, Tony went back to his section of the room. They worked in peaceful silence for a few minutes, nothing but the wet _swish-swish_ of their brushes against the wall.

"Oh, _shit_."

Tony had gone for a stroke at the top of the wall and been rewarded with a blob of aloe on the side of his nose which then dripped down his face.

"_Tony_!"

He was too preoccupied wiping the paint off his face with his t-shirt (so long, BPD 5th Annual Shop with a Cop) to see the look of exasperation that surely colored Ziva's face.

"A little help, honey?" Trying to clean himself up and manage his brush and paint pail proved a bit too much and, hey, wasn't the damn thing supposed to be magnetic? He was lost in an endless cycle of wet mess, as no matter what he touched, he seemed to end up with more pale green smeared on his skin and clothes.

Gibbs' chuckle rang through the room.

"Honey?" Ziva scoffed even as she stilled him with a gentle hand to his face, wiping at the paint smeared on his cheek with a damp rang.

Tony gave her a sheepish shrug. "I don't know. We live in the suburbs now."

Her eyes were bright, though. He'd all too recently come to identify that with a wave of affection for him and so he played to that, smirking right back at her with all the charm he could muster. Ziva scratched at the scruff on his cheek with her nails before giving his lips a quick peck. His smile grew.

"Try to keep the paint on the wall, pumpkin," she teased as she gave his face one last swipe, this one with a little more pressure than necessary.

"Pumpkin?" He pouted. "No. _You_ would be pumpkin. Not me. Food items are not manly."

Ziva rolled her eyes and went back to work.

"Hey. Stud muffin. Watch your edges."

Tony paused, brush hovering just above the wall. He scrutinized his work. "My edges are fine. My hand is steady, Gibbs. Steady!" He thought for a second as he finished his section of the wall and moved on to the adjacent one. "But, Ziva, if you wanted to call me stud muffin, I could live with that."

"Uh. No."

Tony dipped his brush into his pail taking care to shake off the excess paint this time. He glanced over at Gibbs, who was somehow done with nearly a wall and a half already. "You know, boss, sometimes she likes to call me her Italian stallion…"

Tony had barely finished the sentence before he felt the sharp, cold sting of a paint brush making contact with the back of his neck and sliding down his back. There was a moment of disbelief, a moment in which he doubted that his darling sweetcheeks would be able to hit him so swiftly and accurately with a tool from Home Depot from all the way across the room, but then he remembered whom he had chosen to spend the rest of his life with and all that doubt fled.

"Oh you certainly _did not_," he began, loading up his brush for a return throw. He hesitated a moment, wondering if they did a thorough enough job with Gibbs' drop cloths on their wood floors but, eh, they had to be refinished anyway. He let his brush fly, aiming right below Ziva's smirking face. His throw fell embarrassingly short while also flinging half the paint back at his own shirt. He cursed, wiping futilely at the additional aloe streaks on his chest.

Ziva laughed as she advanced on him, picking up his fallen weapon on the way. "That is what you get for being vulgar, Tony!"

"Ha!" Tony dodged more paint that she flung his way. "So you're not denying it!"

In a swift move, he ducked another flying brush, this one bouncing off the wall with a _thwack_ and leaving a green streak in its wake. He dived for his lost brush, dunking it in paint before using his fingers to flick a spray of paint at Ziva, who just giggled and tried to shield her face with her hand. When he went to reload, she hopped over a wrinkle in the drop cloth, dipped her finger in the paint can, and managed to smear it down his cheek before he was able to get any more ammo. Mouth agape, he snatched her wrist out of the air and contemplated how many moves it would take to immobilize her and slather her mocking face in green. Probably more than he could afford. He settled for forcing her hand across his chest, knowing it would now be stained.

"_Hey_!" Gibbs finally refereed. "I am not repainting that ceiling."

Both Tony and Ziva froze, glancing up at their pristine Snowbound ceiling to make sure they hadn't gotten too out of control. Relieved it had survived the siege, Tony released Ziva from his grip and began composing himself. Ziva was still gasping in continuous laughter, or maybe that was annoyance, as she tried to find a place to wipe her hands. She settled for the back of Tony's t-shirt.

"You know, the Rookie Blues scored a lot of business, and saved quite a bit of money on clothes, by painting shirtless," Tony announced, before pulling his t-shirt over his head.

"Is that really necessary?" Gibbs barked, finishing painting the area where Ziva had left off.

Tony shrugged and used the discarded garment to scrub at his battle wounds. When he offered it over to Ziva, she just made a disgusted face.

"You'd better find a different shirt now," Ziva warned, finger waving at him. "If you think I will scrub the paint out of your chest hair tonight, you are crazy."

Glancing down and then back up at her, Tony made a show of rubbing the trail of hair from his belly to his sternum. "I thought cleaning up was half the fun?"

Ziva tried to look annoyed but the slight quirk in her lips betrayed her true feelings on the subject. Tony leered at her, enjoying how she began to fuss with the drop cloths they'd disturbed and avoided his question completely.

With a stern look directed at each of them in turn, Gibbs balanced his brush on his mason jar, set it on the ground, and gave his hands a quick swipe on his jeans. "I'm going to get the rollers. Pull it together, will ya?"

But as he left, there was an unmistakable twinkle in his blue eyes. Tony continued to grin at Ziva, trying to burn in his brain the endearing picture she made with her disheveled hair and the flecks of green dotted across her skin.

"Well, honestly, what does he expect? This is our honeymoon!" He opened his arms wide and shrugged, as if expecting an explanation.

Ziva stood up, satisfied that the floors were properly covered again, and dusted her hands together. She tried to stay neutral, maybe wanted to scold him for their juvenile behavior in front of Gibbs, but she seemed to take one proper look at him standing there, shirtless and self-righteous, chest puffed out, and broke out in a brilliant smile. As she beamed up at him, he knew he would never, ever get over the happiness that lit her face when it struck her all over again that they were _married_.

"Yes," she nodded as she moved toward him, "but that does not mean we should let all our hard work go to waste."

Surrendering his t-shirt to the floor, Tony closed the rest of the distance left between him and his _wife_. And, damn, if saying that, if even in his head, wasn't the most incredible thing ever. "You have paint on your face, Mrs. DiNozzo."

Though a delicate blush shaded her cheeks at that, Ziva still wrinkled her nose. "David-DiNozzo."

"Such a mouthful," he teased, wiping the paint flecks off her skin with the side of his thumb. She melted into his touch.

"Mmm," she murmured, running one hand up through his chest hair, stroking him just over his heart, as the other wrapped around his waist; her eyes slid closed. "I cannot believe you told Gibbs I called you my Italian stallion," she chuckled softly. Her nails raked at his skin as he began to pepper kisses across her brow, tasting a hint of paint every so often.

He let a hand creep up under the knot in her stolen t-shirt, savoring the silky heat of her flesh against his palm. "It's a male thing. Point of pride."

"Gross." She buried her face into his neck, inhaling deeply. He pulled her closer to him. It had only been a few hours since they'd last connected like this, since he'd last lost himself in the smell and feel of her, but it felt like forever. Maybe it was a newlywed thing. Maybe they were still making up for lost time. Ziva, it seemed, felt the same since she started brushing her lips across his skin, nipping him with her teeth every so often. He shivered.

"Cool it, champ," he breathed even as he dipped his fingers beneath the waistband of her shorts. They didn't venture very far but he liked knowing he was only a few inches short of grasping her perfect ass. "Gibbs will be back in a minute."

"You are my husband now," she eased back, gazing at him with a devilish grin. "What can he possibly do?"

He thought about it and, frankly, had a few answers. Still, when Ziva looked at him like _that_ he wasn't about to start any arguments. He ran his hands up into safer territory, tracing the lean muscles of her back. "Say that again."

"What?" Her brow furrowed adorably. She picked at a rapidly drying blob of paint stuck just below the hollow of his throat.

"Husband," he grinned, leaning his forehead against hers and savoring the haze of happiness that had been his life as of late. All the pain and suffering and loneliness that he'd felt for so long without her seemed so far away now, even if it had only been a few weeks since her sudden return. But, honestly, none of that mattered anymore because now they were here, together, finally on the same wavelength, and permanent. He had a marriage license and mortgage to prove it.

"My husband." Ziva glowed, eyes sparkling even in the stark light of their half-painted bedroom in their unfinished house. Then she kissed him, standing up on her tiptoes and wrapping her arms fully around his neck so that she was nearly collapsed against him. He gave in easily, supporting her with his hands on her waist and savoring the kiss.

When they both pulled back, slightly out of breath, she gave him a little half-smile as she stroked his jaw. "I still cannot believe we are married. And own a house!"

"I know," he agreed. He brushed her hair from her face. He loved that she hadn't quite pulled away from him yet. Clingy Ziva. It was still a new thing. "With aloe green walls and everything."

She shook her head at him, going a little rigid in his arms. "I think it will look nice. With our white linens and that painting that Ducky gave us—

"Ziva," Tony interrupted. "I was kidding. I like the color. It's perfect. But more than anything, I want to put those white linens on our nice, new, _big_ bed and christen our new bedroom in our new house and finally start our life together."

"I like that plan." Ziva wove her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. She kissed his chin. "But first we have to finish painting."

"I guess," Tony agreed, dipping down for another kiss. It escalated quickly, especially once he ran his hand all the way up her back and discovered that she had forgone a bra. All thoughts of Gibbs in his house fled, making him an easy mark for Ziva to practically tackle into the wall as she kissed him deep and dirty, usually a precursor to their clothes being flung across the room. She stretched her body against his. She pushed her tongue into his mouth as she pulled him back against her. Her hips thrust against his even as their position was all wrong for any real satisfaction from the maneuver. He whimpered when she tugged his bottom lip between her teeth, soothing the love bite with her tongue a moment later.

He'd just hitched one of her legs over his hip to give her a better angle, his hand working its way up under her shorts to check out the status of that undergarment, when a loud clatter interrupted them.

They jumped apart. Ziva hopped back onto two feet with her typical grace, as if she hadn't just been trying to dry hump him against a wall. Tony gave the back of his head a tentative touch in case he'd just dyed his hair green but his wife had planned her attack strategically and plowed him into an unpainted area. Of course, she had. Ziva swiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, cheeks pink though nothing but defiance was written across her face.

"Ya know, most people honeymoon somewhere _private_," Gibbs ribbed, eyebrow raised. His gaze was unrelenting as they adjusted their clothing back into proper order. When they were situated, he gestured at the roller rods and brushes that rested at his feet.

"True," Tony agreed, a vision of a bikini-clad Ziva sipping from an umbrella drink on their own private beach danced in his brain. Someday. "But we bought a house instead."

Clearing her throat, Ziva glanced around the room, eyes landing anywhere but on Gibbs now that the moment had a chance to settle. Seeing her flustered never failed to amuse Tony. He raised an eyebrow at Gibbs, who seemed equally as entertained.

"We need more rags!" Ziva declared even though they really didn't. She hurried out of the room without sparing either man a glance.

"Get me a new t-shirt, too, babe!" Tony called after her.

That was enough to bring her back, eyes dark and narrowed as she poked her head into the room. "Whatever you need, _sweetie_."

Tony nearly gagged on the word as he muttered it back in disbelief. "Point taken!" he yelled after her, hoping she'd heard. So maybe they didn't really need cutsie nicknames after all.

Gibbs seemed to share the sentiment. "Italian stallion, DiNozzo? Really? You had to give me that image?"

Tony just gave an exaggerated shrug and finished cutting out his area of the room. He wasn't exactly going to go into detail with the man who was practically like a second father to him. And Ziva. Nicknames and sexy-time nicknames were two very different things.

"She seems happy," Gibbs admitted, pouring some paint into a roller tray without wasting a drop.

"Yeah," Tony smiled. "I think so." He considered this statement, a slight flare of insecurity still burning in him. "I mean, I _hope_ so."

Tony had become preoccupied with getting his line just perfect as he rounded a corner so it took him a minute to realize Gibbs was still watching him. He looked up, confused.

"I know so, Tony," Gibbs stated. His voice left no room for argument. "You kids finally got it right."

Overcome with an emotion he knew he couldn't name and still continue to paint like it was no big deal, Tony just accepted the words with a nod and wiped off his brush.

"This color is good, right? I like it. It's peaceful." Tony chattered as he poured his own roller tray. "Sort of a vintage, resort chic vibe."

"Color is fine." Gibbs smirked. He rolled out an M on the wall and worked backwards to fill it in.

"Yeah," Tony agreed, imagining the room filled with the furniture they'd picked out, him and Ziva lounging in bed on a Saturday morning as sunlight streamed through the windows and, maybe someday not so far off, a sticky-fingered toddler clamoring to climb into bed with them. "It'll be perfect. Home sweet home, huh?"

Gibbs didn't respond, but both men smiled as they covered the walls in Ziva's chosen color.


End file.
